September 30, 2011

Three Tips toward Correct Hyphenation

Very few business writers know the basic guidelines for when you do and don’t type a hyphen. Your writing can create an especially careful and polished impression when you grasp these three guidelines:

1. Don’t add a hyphen after most prefixes.
2. Don’t type a hyphen after a word that ends with -ly.
3. Do add a hyphen when most two-word descriptions come before a noun.

First, leave out a hyphen after a prefix in most words – e.g., preapproved or unplanned. But feel free to add a hyphen when the same letter is repeated – e.g., pre-existing or un-newsworthy.

Webster’s dictionary only includes hyphens after prefixes when a word would be unclear without it. (E.g., co-op is a two-syllable noun for a kind of apartment, while coop is a one-syllable noun for a chicken cage).

Second, never add hyphens after words that end with -ly (e.g., it’s incorrect to type the hyphen in “clearly-written report”).

And for other words, do add a hyphen to a two-word description that comes before a noun (“It’s a well-written report“) but leave out the hyphen when the same description follows the noun (“The report is well written”).

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